122 PHYSIOLOGY AND NATIONAL NEEDS 



That this method, valuable as it doubtless is in 

 careful hands, is not always carried out properly is 

 clearly indicated by Mr. F. Noel Paton, Director- 

 General of Commercial Intelligence in India. Writ- 

 ing in 1913, in Indian Wheat and Grain Elevators, he 

 says : *^ Quantities of wheat are still stored in pits. 

 These are lined with straw and chaff, and some- 

 times, it is said, with a plaster compounded of mud 

 and cow dung. The wheat is placed in them in 

 bulk and is covered with straw, earth and thatch. 

 Protracted storage in such pits results in damage 

 more or less serious. This damage appears in the 

 form of moulds and results in discoloration and bad 

 smell. But there is evidence that the ravages of 

 weevil are to some extent inhibited by the conditions 

 set up. This is believed to be due to the generation 

 of carbonic acid gas in the processes of decomposi- 

 tion. It is well understood that it is dangerous 

 to enter such pits when they are j&rst opened ; and 

 there is on record at least one authenticated case 

 of a dealer being convicted of a rash and negligent 

 act which occasioned the death of several labourers 

 sent into a pit prematurely." 



The same principle of storage is carried out 

 in a much more thorough and efficient manner in 

 Malta, where, as Professor Zammitt tells us in a 

 letter addressed to Professor Newstead, one of my 

 colleagues on the Grain Pests Committee, the gran- 

 aries have the form of deep pits made in the ground, 



